they're trying to chip away at it on these micro local angles but on the larger argument i don't think they have a good retort, and i think obama is winning -- i think more people are believing him on the question of bankruptcy for detroit. >> i think, mike, that may be because the president was telling the truth because when mitt romney used the word "guarantee" last night, that was a felicitous and sophisticated untruth because you and i know there was no private equity to save the motor industry. steve rattner, who was in that team of people begging private investors, wrote an op-ed in "the new york times" and explained there was nobody. >> yeah. i think that's right. i think that's what it comes down to is, you know, this was true of a lot of things in the economy at the time. it was a big rationale for the stimulus, that the private sector -- there was a huge vacuum where an influx of money was needed to save the auto industry, to prevent the economy from collapsing totally, and only the government really had the resources and the luxury and the economic ability to step in and fil